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Jim Carroll

Music, Life and everything else

Can the end-of-year sales myth survive this season?

Warning: this is a piece which mentions the C word. Readers of a sensitive disposition might want to turn to the film reviews now. Yes, Christmas is coming. For the record industry, Christmas is the most important season of the …

Jim Carroll

jimcarroll

Fri, Sep 7, 2012, 08:43

Warning: this is a piece which mentions the C word. Readers of a sensitive disposition might want to turn to the film reviews now. Yes, Christmas is coming.

For the record industry, Christmas is the most important season of the year. It’s why you will get so many major releases jostling for shelf-space and coverage in the next few weeks.

It’s also make-or-break time for the retail sector. Over a few short weeks in December, record shops will do more business than they’ve done all year. The shops won’t want to think just yet about what might happen in January or if they will still be standing come February or if HMV will still be on the High Street by March.

What’s remarkable to note is that there’s still an industry-wide myth about end-of-year sales. All involved know that sales are slumping like never before – it’s no longer just Ireland where you can score a chart hit with an unfeasibly low tally of sales – yet the labels still push all their big releases into this end-of-year cluster.

It stands to reason that a big bunch of releases at the same time will not result in a rising tide for all those acts. It also stands to reason that a sales slump often occurs when there’s nothing to buy.